Holmes The Younger - The Blind Banker
by Watson'sGirl
Summary: [SEQUEL TO HOLMES THE YOUNGER - A STUDY IN PINK] Three months have passed since John Watson and Lucy moved into Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes and Charles. When a old friend of Sherlock's offers them the case the they have desperately been waiting for, how can they refuse. When the tension gets high, people get hurt. Rated T for mild language, violence and possible sexual scenes
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own Sherlock or it's characters, they belong to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and the BBC. I only own my OC characters, Charles and Lucy.**

**Welcome back guys! This is the sequel to Holmes The Younger: A Study In Pink - so please make sure that you have read that one first, if you haven't already. Thank you so much to everyone who read, reviewed, followed and favourited the last story, it means so much as it was my first fan fic :)!**

**How about a nice long chapter to get the ball rolling, I don't think all the chapters will be this long, I just couldn't stop writing mainly because I was listening to the Sherlock soundtrack, but them I got really upset when Blood On The Pavement came on (you can even guess by the title which part it was from). Speaking of the soundtrack I love the tracks Deduction And Deception and Prepared To Do Anything.**

**Just one last thing to add, the POV's will be slightly choppy during the beginning of this chapter, so apologies in advance. Also like it says in the summary there will be more language in this story than in the first, hope it doesn't bother anyone, but in all seriousness, no one in real life can go a day with out swearing.**

**Anyhoo, enjoy!**

* * *

**LUCY**

It had been three months since me and my dad moved in with Sherlock and Charles, and a lot had changed. Charles and I are still dating, much to most peoples surprise - mainly Anderson and Donovan, I suppose they thought that Charles would have scared me off by now, or if he hadn't then Sherlock surely would have, but he was seemingly okay with our relationship, in fact we were steadily becoming close enough to the point where I could consider him a 'friend'. Once all of my injuries from the taxi driver case were completely healed and I was given a clean bill of health, Sherlock allowed me to continue helping him and John on their cases. During my 'absence' Charles hadn't been on any cases at all, he had stayed with me all day, every day and we played board games, baked with Mrs Hudson and helped her in her cafe next to the flat, but most of the time we simply sat and talked, slowly creating a bond between us that was almost impenetrable. Recently there had been no big cases, just break ins, small scandals and the occasional missing person, so you could say we were all a bit desperate for something big to happen, but until it came around, I had to settle with watching John fight a self-service checkout at the local supermarket. I watched him as he hunched over the checkout, attempting to scan items from the basket, while I was observing, a short queue had begun to form behind us, throwing them a quick glance, I turned back to John as he scanned another item before a automated voice of a woman came from the machine '**UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.**'

* * *

**CHARLES**

I managed to pick myself up off the floor after receiving a hefty boot to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and leaving me rather breathless. I dusted my self down and returned my focus on the current situation at hand, that was happening in the living room of 221B Baker Street, Sherlock and I are currently under attack from a incredibly, heavily robed figure, his face and head almost completely shrouded in a variety of scarves, he was an assassin sent to retrieve the Jaria Diamond which Sherlock and I had successfully managed to locate and confiscate from a group of foreign merchants, the case had progressed a little slower than planned, it took us all of three hours which was far too long. I snapped my head round, hearing Sherlock grunt as the attacker slashes at them with a curved sword, causing Sherlock to back up carefully and duck to avoid the continuous blows, I had to react quick as the man swiped his sword down towards my legs, I put all my weight onto my feet before launching myself into the air, just high enough so that the man's attack was in vain, upon landing I was yanked down by my shoulder as the sword swished over the top of my head. I watched as Sherlock was pulled to his feet and pushed back up to the sofa, dodging more and more swings as they came his way, he ducked under the sword and dropped onto the sofa in a comfortable sitting position. I ran forward as the attacker lifts his sword above his head with both hands, and quickly sliding across the floor, I crouched behind the man on all fours as Sherlock raised his leg and planted a solid kick onto the man's chest, shoving him backwards. As the man stumbled backwards, I tensed my whole body, preparing for the impact as his muscular legs crashed into my shoulder and side making him lose his balance and fall backwards over me, landing on his back. Sherlock and I both rose to our feet and I looked over at Sherlock to see him taking an all-important moment to straighten his jacket before giving me a swift nod and we charging across the living room towards the man.

* * *

**LUCY**

The groans and complaints of the queue behind us were no longer silent, and I could see that John was beginning to get more and more frustrated, both with the machine and with the impatience of the general public. I cleared my throat loudly as a obvious sign to those spectating that we could actually hear them, a few of them turned away while some just continued voicing their opinions, grumbling as John was still holding a lettuce and moving it slowly back and forwards across the front of the scanner in an attempt to get it to read the bar code. Again, the automated voice rang out '**ITEM NOT SCANNED. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.**' He straightened up, squaring his shoulder as he stood staring down at the device in exasperation, I bit my knuckle trying to conceal a laugh that was determined to come out, I found it amusing to watch John square up to a piece of machinery 'Do you think you could keep your voice down?' that did it, I dropped my hand from my mouth as the laugh all but exploded from my mouth as the little social gathering that was now occurring around the check out began to mumble and grumble even louder, attracting more attention. Completely forgetting the somewhat funny side of the situation, I felt both sorry for John and yet, at the same time I could feel my face slowly becoming redder as the embarrassment withing me grew.

'Dad hurry up!' My somewhat angry whisper came out as more of a hiss as I leaned over the checkout and stared at him. I gave a quick glance over my shoulder as the queue continued looking on at the scene, much like John, I was now becoming agitated and annoyed as people spectated the struggle. 'People are staring!'

* * *

**CHARLES**

By the time we had ran towards the man, he had scurried back to his feet and was prepared for us. I dropped to the ground as he swung his arm out, it making a connection with my throat, brutally striking my windpipe. Hacking coughing wracked through my body and the feeling in my throat was like swallowing razor blades. I heard a crash from the kitchen and pulled myself up to see that the attacker had his sword pressed horizontally across Sherlock's chest, as he pushed him backwards onto the kitchen, as Sherlock kept a tight grip on the man's wrists, he fell back onto the kitchen table and the man followed him down, trying to press the edge of the blade into Sherlock's throat. I rushed over upon seeing the grimace of effort on Sherlock's face as he tried to push the man's wrists upwards to prevent the blade from cutting him. The point of the sword had begun to dig into the table by the time I'd reached the kitchen, I threw my arms around the man's broad shoulders as Sherlock raised his left leg to knee the man in the side several times weakening the man's grip enough so that with a combined effort, Sherlock was able to force himself upwards again, as the sword tip gouges into the table leaving a long slash across the top.

* * *

**LUCY**

Finally, John had at last managed to get everything scanned, well it took the both of us really. I was pulling the shopping backs from the racks and balancing them equally on each arm as John inserts his credit card into the chip-and-PIN machine to pay, after entering his pin number, I watched his nostrils flare in and out as the all to familiar automated voice made another appearance '**CARD NOT AUTHORIZED PLEASE USE AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD OF PAYMENT.**'

'Yes, all right! I've got it!' John held up his hands to the machine in a mock surrender then turned to the queue to do the same

**CARD NOT ****AUTHORIZED PLEASE USE AN ALTERNATIVE METHOD OF PAYMENT.**' the voice came again, only to get a snarl of a reply from John. I looked as the man who was standing at the front of the queue, and who had been for about twenty minutes now, picked up his own basket and walked off in expectation of getting to another scanner sooner. John reached towards his back pocket but stopped when he realized that he has no other way of paying, I did tell him that it is always best to take at least two or three sources of cash.  
'Got nothing.' he sighed. He looked to his right and then to his left, towards me 'Have you got your card?' I shook my head in response, with a long sigh he pointed at the machine. 'Right, keep it. Keep that.' I stood there with my arm held out to the side in a 'what the fuck' expression, shopping bags still hanging off of them, as John turned his heel and stalked out of the shop. Composing myself, I slowly turned to look at the man who had previously left the queue, but was now back once he saw John leave, and gave him a small smile as I carefully placed each of the bags on the floor, one by one. He looked at me in surprise as I angrily walked after John abandoning the shopping and the credit card too, it was useless after all.

* * *

**CHARLES**

Sherlock was back on his feet once again and had joined me back in the living room, where the fight had moved to, and also where I was now blocking numerous blows to the head with my forearms and the man was relentlessly thrusting the handle of the sword at my face. The attacker took another swing, I ducked as the handle aimed a little higher towards the very top of my head, I saw Sherlock also duck as the sword's blade swung round, barely missing his ear as he ducked out of it's range, I stumbled trying to get up and ended up falling face first into the man's legs. Luckily before he could grab me or worse, possible kill me Sherlock had straightened up and was pointing directly over the man's shoulder. 'Look!' Sherlock gasped, feigning shock. The man had already half turned in that direction whilst swinging his sword, and it appeared that he was momentary distracted by the reflections in the mirror over the fireplace behind him, Sherlock took advantage of this and swung a powerful uppercut to the man's chin, as soon as his fist connected with his jaw, the man was unconscious and was now slumping in Sherlock's armchair. Sherlock straightened himself up and immediately checks his reflection in the mirror, straightening his jacket and cuffs and then dusting himself down, before extending his hand down to assist me. I grabbed his hand and heaved myself up, before sorting myself out, we then each grabbed one of the mans arms and looked at each other as if to say 'Now what?'

Some time later, after we had contacted Mycroft and requested that two of his least annoying employees were to come to Baker Street and make arrangements for the assassin, we were in the living room, silently waiting for John and Lucy to return with the shopping, Sherlock was in his armchair calmly reading a book and I was busy cleaning up the mess left in the kitchen as a result of Sherlock's last experiment, apparently eyeballs did explode in excessive heat, so the microwave found out. Hearing the front door close and John and Lucy ascending the stairs, I took one last look around to make sure that there was no noticeable sign of the attacker ever being here, happy that the coast was clear I continued cleaning to kitchen's worktops as John and Lucy walked into the living room, John stopping just inside the room and looking around as if he suspected that something has happened in his absence, but he can't tell what, while Lucy joined me in the kitchen. 'Hello love.' I bent down to plant a kiss on her lips as she greeted me.

'You took your time.' I heard Sherlock pipe up from the living room, he hadn't looked up from his book, a book which he actually wasn't reading.

'Yeah, we didn't get the shopping.' John snapped back. Sherlock looked over the top of his book indignantly.

'What? Why not?' I felt Lucy slip her hand into mine and she began to pull me towards the living room with a big smile on her face, since she was obviously hiding a laugh, the reason behind them failing to get the shopping must have been a good one. Leaning against the archway leading into the living room I watched John, ready to give his explanation.

'Because I had a row, in the shop, with a chip-and-PIN machine.' he said tetchily and neither me or Lucy could prevent to giggles that passed through our lips.

'You...' Sherlock lowered his book ever so slightly, just enough so that he was able to peer over the top of it '...you had a row with a machine?'

'Sort of. It sat there and he shouted abuse.' Lucy managed to slip in before John had anytime to claim back any of his credibility that he left behind at the market, along with the shopping and his card.

'Have you got cash?' John chipped in glaring at her, eager for this conversation to end.

Sherlock had somehow managed to hold back his amused smile as he nodded towards the kitchen. 'Take my card.' John walks towards the kitchen to where his wallet was lying on the table, but before he got there he had turned back to Sherlock, indignantly.

'You could always go yourself, you know. You've been sitting there all morning.' he waved his hands around, signalling the space around Sherlock 'You've not even moved since I left.' I briefly flashed back in my mind to the fight as we both ducked under a swing from the attacker's sword, as it cuts right into Sherlock's coat hanging on the back of the door. I came out of it and looked back to Sherlock as he tries to look nonchalant by turning the page of his book while John goes to pick up the wallet from the table and rummaging through it for a suitable payment card. 'And what happened about that case you were offered – the Jaria Diamond?'

'Oh, he wasn't interested.' I said quickly, giving a quick glance over to Sherlock, I saw him use a piece of paper as a bookmark, before shutting the book with a loud snap, and only then did I realize that the attacker's sword was still lying underneath his chair in plain view. I cleared my throat enough to get his attention, and looked down to where the sword was lying. Sherlock sees this and quickly slams his foot down onto the end and slides his foot and the sword further back to get the weapon out of sight.

'I sent them a message.' he said firmly, again I flash backed to his uppercut that ended the fight. I moved back into the kitchen to finish the cleaning job I had started, I knew that Mrs Hudson would not be pleased if she were to come home to the kitchen counters matted in eyeball juice. John, who had now found a card he can use, was leaning over the table, closely examining the new long narrow gouge in the top of the table. He sighed as he ran his finger along the cut, rubbing at it just in case it was just a mark that could be removed.

'Ugh, Holmes.' I heard him mutter in an exasperated whisper. Looking across to Sherlock, he tutted pointedly and Sherlock simply shook his head innocently. John then turned and left the room, trotting down the stairs, missing the smirks from me and Sherlock.

Later on in the morning, towards dinner time, John staggered up the stairs to the flat carrying several bags of shopping, 'Don't worry about me. I can manage.' the bags were obviously too much for him to manage on his own, so myself and Lucy got up from our comfy spots on the couch where we were happily cuddled, watching a movie, to help him unpack the shopping and put it away. Sherlock, who was now sitting at the dining table with his hands folded in front of his mouth as he looked at his laptop screen, he barely glanced across to John, who sighed heavily as he carried most of the bags into the kitchen, as me and Lucy came through with the remaining few. Dumping them on the tables, I look over to Sherlock as he appears to be engrossed in reading an e-mail from someone called Sebastian Wilkes, I couldn't see the e-mail but from what could read in the brief time that I looked I could see that this Sebastian and Sherlock haven't seen each other for a long time. I scanned over the screen, reading that Sebastian has heard that Sherlock is now a consultant – or a consulting detective – and is telling him that "There's been an 'incident' at the bank" which he was hoping that Sherlock may be able to help in sorting it out. He was also asking for him to drop by and says that he would be relying on Sherlock's discretion. I turned to John, who was now looking down at Sherlock, as he realizes that the laptop Sherlock was using was in fact his. 'Is that my computer?'

'Of course.' Sherlock, typing away, didn't look up from the laptop as he replied. After a brief pause he did look up to see a rather tired John glaring down at him hands on hips 'Mine was in the bedroom.'

'What, and you couldn't be bothered to get up?' Sherlock didn't reply. 'It's password protected!' he stated indignantly.

Sherlock gave a small grunt as he kept on typing 'In a manner of speaking. Took me less than a minute to guess yours.' He glanced up at John. 'Not exactly Fort Knox.'

'Right, thank you.' I heard Lucy give a small chuckle from the fridge where she was busy filling the fruit and vegetable drawer with the shopping, as John snatched the laptop out of Sherlock's grasp, slamming the lid down as Sherlock managed to pull his fingers out of the way just in time. John then took the laptop across the room and placed it down on the floor beside his armchair as he sat down. I moved to the fridge to help Lucy as Sherlock clasped his hands in his usual prayer position in front of his mouth, propping his elbows on the table and looking thoughtful, I rolled my eyes a little at his dramatic gestures. Once finished we went back to the couch to finish watching the movie, once again getting comfy with Lucy's head resting on my chest and my arm across the back of the couch, my other one holding hers, I watched John carefully as he picked up a small pile of letters from the table beside his armchair. 'Oh.' he said with a frown. He flicked through the letters, which going by the return address and the stamp thy had to be bills and final reminders for bills that urgently needed paying, he shook his head in resignation. 'Need to get a job.' he said to himself.

'Oh, dull.' I noticed both John and Lucy flinch slightly in surprise as Sherlock's baritone voice filled the room, he had somehow managed to move from the kitchen to the living room and was now sitting opposite John, without being noticed. He did seem to be lost in thought as John returned the letters back to the table before looking across the room to Sherlock for a moment, but then he glanced at the bills again and awkwardly sat forward.

'Listen, um...if you'd be able to lend me some...' he was wringing his hands uncomfortably, stopping as he notices that Sherlock appeared to be a world of his own. 'Sherlock, are you listening?'

After a few seconds of silence, Sherlock suddenly jumped up 'I need to go to the bank.' heading towards the stairs, he looks towards me as he took his coat from the hook on the door as he moved across the room. I knew from the look that he obviously wanted me to go with him, as well as John, who was already skipping down the stairs after him. Tapping Lucy on the shoulder, I turned off the television before untangling myself from the comfortable huddle we were in. 'Come on.' I grabbed both her hands and pulled her up from the couch ignoring her protests. 'Hey you know what he's like if we ignore him.' I jogged to the kitchen, grabbed our coats and together we hopped down the stairs and jumped in the cab which Sherlock had hailed, and was already sitting in the back waiting for us. Going by the glint in his eye, and the weird curl on his lips, something told me we weren't going to the bank.

* * *

**Hey guys, it feels good to be back. Now, in case anyone is interested Lucy is basically me but with a different name, I'm not vain or anything by writing myself into a story, but I feel that it is easier to write a character that I know, and I know me pretty well. I also think that I need to explain herself and Charles a bit. I was planning to write this in, but it would be so brief that I'm just adding it here. So like I said Lucy is basically me, she wants to be on the West End, as do I, she is an amazing singer and dancer, not saying I am (I'm okay, I can hold notes, and I can tap dance, so I'm good.) I've decided to put her into college, because it can add some different side stories and drama to the story. And yes the musical mentioned in here and the role she is playing is the exact same as me, I highly recommend you check it out, it is unbelievable, and Sutton Foster, what a woman!**

**Anyway onto Charles - now he isn't based on anyone I know, he's just something my imagination conjured up. Charles doesn't exactly want to be a 'consulting detective' like Sherlock, although he does enjoy it (I will add in what he wants to do with himself when he's older, in a later chapter) He doesn't go to school/college/university whatever you call it because Sherlock thinks him too smart, so he doesn't have a choice really.**

**Also, as I am in a musical at my college and theatre (yes the same show, both on for four weeks, one right after the other, making that eight weeks in total! Wow.) I am super busy at the moment and may only get the chance to update once every week, if I push enough, maybe two.**

**Anyway, I've rambled on long enough now. Okay bye!**

**-Watson'sGirls-**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own Sherlock or its characters, they belong to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and the BBC. I only own my OC characters, Charles and Lucy, along with any others.**

**I don't know why but I'm finding it a little hard to write, and when I do, it sounds crap. I think it's all the pressure I'm under right now, so apologies if the chapters are not up to a decent standard.**

**xxxMadameMysteryxxx - thank you for your kind review, glad you liked it :) I will try to keep updating at least once a week, but because of my ridiculously busy schedule, updates may be very spaced.**

***Note at the end***

**Enjoy,**

* * *

**CHARLES**

As soon as we had gotten out of the taxi on Old Broad Street, Sherlock practically marched up to the building, Lucy grabbed my hand as the rest of us struggling to keep up with his long strides. He waited for us at the revolving doors that lead into the building's reception area, I look around a caught a glimpse of John's expression and watched as he stared at the impressive foyer as we followed Sherlock. 'Yes, when you said we were going to the bank' He said as we all lines up on the escalator behind Sherlock. I watched him closely as he observed everything around him, taking particular interest in the security systems which required a security card to be swiped across the electronic readers next to it, in order for the glass barrier gates to become accessible. Once we reached the top of the escalator, we walked over to the main reception desk labelled Shad Sanderson, and Sherlock addresses one of the receptionists.

'Sherlock Holmes.'

After a short wait of around five minutes, the four of us were ushered into a very spacious office under the name of Sebastian Wilkes, quickly followed by him 'Sherlock Holmes.'

'Sebastian.' They shook hands, just as Sherlock released his hand Sebastian clasped Sherlock's hand firmly in both of his own.

'Howdy, buddy. How long's it been?' He gave him a hefty thump on his back, only to receive a glare from Sherlock in return. 'Eight years since I last clapped eyes on you?' Sherlock looked back at him with only marginally disguised dislike as Sebastian turned to look at the remainder of the group, mainly John.

'This is my _friend_, John Watson.'

'Friend?' He latched onto the over emphasized word.

'Colleague.' John corrected him

'Right.' Sebastian shook hands with John, eyeing him up and down curiously._ '_Right.' He threw a brief look at Sherlock as if to say 'Didn't think you had a friend!' Grinning in an unpleasant way, he reached up to scratch his neck momentarily as I notice Sherlock's gaze fall onto his wrist watch, turn his head slightly Sebastian clocked his eyes on me and Lucy standing to the side._ '_This can't possibly be little Charlie could it?'

'Charles.' Sherlock corrected in a matter-of-fact fashion. He hates it when people call me Charlie, Mrs Hudson being the only exception.

'Good to see you Sebastian.' I brushed off Sherlock's comment and shook his hand, as we pulled our hands away Sebastian glances to my side where Lucy was standing, still holding my hand, a little more tightly now.

'Well hello there.' Myself, Sherlock and John turned to each other and shared the same slightly disgusted expression as Sebastian attempted to be seductive. Feeling Lucy grasp on my hand tighten, as he looked her up and down. However, upon seeing the two of us holding hands tightly, his smiled faded and turned into a smirk as he eyed her again 'Who might you be?'

'Lucy this is Sebastian Wilkes, old friend. Sebastian, Lucy Watson.'

'Nice to meet you Mr Wilkes' Her voice was a whisper, but still ever so polite as she extended her hand to meet Sebastian's already waiting one.

'Sebastian please.' He pulled her hand up to his mouth, placing a kiss across her knuckles, all of us, Sherlock included, grimaced once again at this motion, which was lasting longer than any of us were comfortable with. 'The pleasures all mine.' Lucy was beginning to shift uncomfortably, as she looks down at her feet awkwardly her eyes briefly lock onto his watch and she suddenly grabs his wrist and quickly pulled it closer, almost pulling Sebastian over in the process.

'Crap is that the time?!' I cleared my throat as she continued to study the watch, she looks up and I motion to Sebastian's wrist which she still has a hold of. 'Sorry.' She sharply dropped his wrist, allowing it to fall to his side before turning to me. 'I need to go, I have to be at the theatre for eleven.'

'Okay, well do you want me to meet you afterwards?' I asked before John could say something along the lines of himself insisting that he would meet her, which might have embarrassed her.

'No it's okay. We're not going to be finished until late, I'll just get a taxi back to the flat.' She leaned up to give me a kiss before skipping over to John and pecking him on the cheek, as she jogged through the double glass doors which lead into the office, and over to the escalator, she had already pulled out her script for the show '_Anything Goes' _and was flicking through the pages. As she disappeared down the escalator, I felt Sebastian clasp his hand on my shoulder.

'Nice work, Charlie boy.' As Sebastian turns away, is say John purse his lips, clearly having took an instant dislike to the man. 'Well, grab a pew. Do you need anything? Coffee, water?' Sherlock shook his head, answering for the three of us. 'No?' Again, he shook his head. 'We're all sorted here, thanks.' Sebastian motioned to his secretary as she went to leave the room. He moved round his desk to sit in the over sized chair, as me, Sherlock and John sat side by side opposite him._  
_

'So, you're doing well. You've been abroad a lot.' Sherlock stated.

'Well, some.'

'Flying all the way round the world twice in a month?' I saw John frown in confusion as Sebastian laughed and pointed at Sherlock.

'Right. You're doing that thing.' He looked over at John._ '_We were at uni together. This guy here had a trick he used to do.' He clarified.

'It's not a trick.' Sherlock muttered quietly to himself, the same time as I did also. It wasn't a trick, both me and Sherlock could do it simply because we thought in a different way to others, we observed first rather than afterwards.

'He could look at you and tell you your whole life story.' He seemed to be talking to all of us.

'Yes, I've seen him do it.'

'Put the wind up everybody. We hated him.' Sherlock turned his head away, looking down as his face momentarily filled with pain, the same pain that was constantly etched on my face as I received verbal and physical abuse from most of my school friends, well I say friends, they were all too incompetent for that. I knew that Sherlock would have had a hard time throughout his teenage years, being the way he is, and I emphasized for him having to go through the same things I was suffering no more than a year ago. 'You'd come down to breakfast in the Formal Hall and this freak would know you'd been shagging the previous night.' Sebastian continued.

'I simply observed.' Sherlock said quietly

'Go on, enlighten me. Two trips a month, flying all the way around the world – you're quite right. How could you tell?' Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but Sebastian continues speaking. 'You're gonna tell me there was, um, a stain on my tie from some special kind of ketchup you can only buy in Manhattan.'

'No, I ...'

'Maybe it was the mud on my shoes!' Sebastian continued to talk over him, and I now understood why it had been eight years since they had last spoken. Sebastian Wilkes was a pompous dick, plain and simple.

'I was just chatting with your secretary outside. _She_ told me.' John frowned at him, slightly confused by his ordinary explanation, whereas I just smiled, getting the 'joke'. Sebastian obviously didn't a he laughed humorless as Sherlock smiled back at him with and equal lack of humor.

Sebastian clasped his hands together, becoming more serious. 'I'm glad you could make it over. We've had a break-in.' He stood and motioned for us to follow him across the trading floor towards another glass door. 'Sir William's office – the bank's former Chairman. The room's been left here like a sort of memorial. Someone broke in late last night.'

'What did they steal?' John asked.

'Nothing. Just left a little message.' He held his security card against the reader adjacent to the door to unlock it. The room was quite plain, apart from a large wooden desk, behind it was a framed painted picture of a man in a suit - the late Sir William Shad. On the wall to the left of the portrait someone had spray painted what to me appeared to be a graffiti 'tag' in luminous yellow paint. The tag vaguely resembled a number eight but with the top of the number left uncompleted and open, and above it was a slightly misaligned straight line. Across the eyes of the portrait was another almost straight horizontal line, sprayed in identical paint to the rest. The artist had obviously over sprayed the line and the yellow paint had run, leaving trails down the painting, possibly due to the texture of the painting. Sebastian lead us to the desk, stepping aside allowing us a clear view of the wall. He looked at Sherlock expectantly as he stared at the graffiti in fixed concentration. He stayed like that for fifteen minutes before Sebastian took us back into his office to show us the security footage from the previous night. 'Sixty seconds apart.' He said whilst flicking back and forth between a still image taken at precisely 23:34:01, which showed the paint on the wall and on the portrait, and another images taken a minute earlier at 23:33:01, showing that the wall and portrait were both clean. _'_So, someone came up here in the middle of the night, splashed paint around, then left within a minute.'

'How many ways into that office?' I asked.

'Well, that's where this gets really interesting.' He took us back to the reception area, and showed us the layout of the trading floor and its surrounding offices, each door and window on the plan had a light against it showing its security status, most of them flashing locked. 'Every door that opens in this bank, it gets logged right here. Every walk-in cupboard, every toilet.

'That door didn't open last night.' Sherlock stated.

'There's a hole in our security. Find it and we'll pay you – five figures.' He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and took out an already written cheque. 'This is an advance. Tell me how he got in, there's a bigger one on its way.'

'I don't _need_ an incentive, Sebastian.' Sherlock snapped as he turned his back and walked away. Me and John stood there awkwardly as we were left with Sebastian still holding out the cheque.

'He's, uh, he's kidding you, obviously.' John said holding out his hand. 'Sh-shall I look after that for him?' Sebastian reluctantly handed the cheque over to John with a sigh. 'Thanks.' I looked over John's shoulder at the five numbers written on the cheque, he shook his head in disbelief that this was only the advance.

* * *

John and I said goodbye to Sebastian as he went back to work, and we set off back towards the main offices to find Sherlock. Upon returning to Sir William's office, we found Sherlock taking pictures of the graffiti with the camera on his mobile phone, thinking it was a good thing to do I took my phone out to do the same. When I took my phone out of my pocket, I saw I had a text message from Lucy.

**I'm going to be late tonight, probably won't be in until eleven. I have a key, don't wait up xx - LW**

I didn't bother replying because I knew she was obviously busy, so I put my phone back in my pocket and looked back up at the room to see that Sherlock had opened one of the offices windows that led out onto a balcony and was standing on the ledge looking over to the Swiss Re Tower, better known as 'The Gherkin'. I knew better than to disturb him, so I just let him be, he looked down at the incredibly long drop down to the busy London street hundreds of feet below, without a word he jumped back through the window and stalked out of Sir William's room and back into the main office area. Spinning around after him, I saw that John was on the far side of the room asking some of the office workers standing by the water cooler some questions about the break-in, where as Sherlock was side-stepping and skipping round the desks and pillars, going both side-to-side and up and down. He ducked down behind a desk and rose slowly upright, staring in concentration at the glass doorway that led into Sir William's office, he then quickly ducked sideways and hurried across the floor out of sight, to the bemusement of the traders who had all stopped what they were doing to watch him as he practically danced around the room. He popped up from behind another desk and continued to scurry sideways and duck down behind desks before jumping up again and looking into the doorway. He does a final twirl around a column before backing towards and office on the other side of the trading floor stopping in that doorway, his eyes fixed on Sir William's office, he waves his hand at me in a clear sign for me to get out-of-the-way, so I side step to my left to give him a better view. I could feel the traders watching me as I jogged around the room and into the office where Sherlock was standing directly behind the chair of whoever worked in that room, I stood beside him and aligned our line of sight seeing that the person who this office belonged to had a clear view of the top of the painting and the yellow slash across the portrait's eyes. Sherlock mustn't have known I was standing there as he crossed sideways across the room, taking me with him before moving back to his previous position, I confirmed that this was the only place on the whole floor where the damage painting could be seen. I looked around the room for any form of personal identification, finding none, I went to the door and saw two signs positioned on the outside of the door, one showing that this was the office of the Hong Kong Desk Head, another sign was above it giving the name of that person - Edward Van Coon. I slid the top sign out of its holder and moved back to where Sherlock was still standing and handed him the sign, he took it, looked at it and gave it back to me before walking off leaving me to quickly followas Sherlock collected John from the water cooler and the three of us headed towards the escalators.

'Two trips around the world this month. You didn't ask his secretary; you said that just to irritate him.' John stated. Sherlock smiled but didn't reply 'How _did_ you know?'

'Did you see his watch?' Sherlock replied. I remembered seeing him briefly glance at Sebastian's wrist as he scratched his neck

'His watch?'

'The time was right but the date was wrong. Said two days ago. Crossed the dateline twice but he didn't alter it.'

'Within a month? How did you get that part?'

'New Breitling.' When I thought back, I recalled seeing _Breitling Chronometre Crosswind_ branded on the watch's face._ '_Only came out this February.'

'Okay. So do you think we should sniff around here for a bit longer?' John asked.

'Got everything we need to know already, thanks.' He looked at John who was looking back at him slightly confused 'That graffiti was a message for someone at the bank working on the trading floors. We find the intended recipient and...' He deliberately trailed off, allowing John the opportunity to finish the sentence.

'...they'll lead us to the person who sent it.'

'Obvious.'

'Well, there's three hundred people up there. Who was it meant for?'

'Pillars.' I intercepted.

'What?' John turned to look up at me.

'Pillars and the screens. Very few places you can see that graffiti from.'

'That narrows the field considerably. And of course the message was left at eleven thirty-four last night. That tells us a lot.' Sherlock finished for me.

'Does it?'

I continued to talk as we go through the revolving door and out onto the street. 'Traders come to work at all hours. Some trade with Hong Kong in the middle of the night. That message was intended for someone who came in at midnight. I held up the name card to show John. 'Not many Van Coons in the phonebook.'

* * *

After a short taxi ride, we were outside of the block of flats where Edward Van Coon lived, Sherlock walked straight up to the door, seeing that they were locked and required someone to buzz you in to gain access, he pressed the door buzzer marked 'Van Coon'. Releasing it, he looked into the security camera above the buzzers and waited a couple of seconds before pressing the buzzer again. Still there was no response.

'So what do we do now? Sit here and wait for him to come back?' John asked.

Sherlock looked closely at the number of buzzers on the wall, stepping back he looked up to the top of the building, presumably calculating the layout of the flats inside. He came back to the wall, looking at John and me triumphantly. 'Just moved in.'

'What?'

'The floor above. New label.' He pointed to another buzzer a few down from Van Coon's which has a handwritten label saying, 'Wintle'.

'Could have just replaced it.' I said. Sherlock presses the buzzer, then turned to look at me again.

'No-one ever does that.'

'Hello?' A woman's voice came over the building's intercom.

Sherlock turned to the intercoms camera and smiled, putting on a 'I'm just a normal harmless human being' voice. 'Hi! Um, I live in the flat just below you. I-I don't think we've met.'

'No, well, uh, I've just moved in.' I chuckled softly as Sherlock turned to throw a brief 'told you so' glance at me and John before turning back to the camera.

'Actually, I've just locked my keys in my flat.' He grimaced as he bit his lip plaintively.

'Do you want me to buzz you in?'

'Yeah. And can I use your balcony?' He asked nonchalantly.

'What?'

* * *

Not long after Sherlock had managed to flirt his way into the lucky Ms Wintle's flat, he was standing on her balcony looking over it to the ground several floors below. I began to follow him, ignoring the fact that I didn't like heights all that much, but luck for me, the top floor which we were on had balconies which only ran halfway across the front of the flat whereas the floor below had full-width balconies. I followed Sherlock as he climbed over the side of Ms Wintle's balcony and dropped down onto the balcony outside Van Coon's flat. I jumped down to join him as he took another look over the edge, I didn't want to look, I got a little dizzy just thinking about it, instead I turned and reached for the handle of the door and found that it was unlocked, which was a good thing or we'd be sitting there waiting for Lestrade to turn up with many many colleagues who would want to take photographs of us stranded out there. I cautiously went inside, holding the door open for Sherlock, and walked across a very elegantly decorated living room. This was clearly the apartment of a wealthy man, with white leather furniture, shiny black tables and minimal clutter. I looked at everything as we pass through the room, glancing at a pile of books on a table as I passed them. Sherlock walked through to the kitchen, looking at the work surface before opening the fridge to reveal that was full of nothing other than bottles of champagne. The front door to the flat buzzes.

'Sherlock.' John's voice came from the intercom's buzzer as we moved into the hall.

'Sherlock, are you okay?' John called again. 'Charles will you open the door?' I felt bad for ignoring him as I opened a door which led into a small bathroom, I looked inside at the few items that were on the shelf opposite, I could feel Sherlock breathing down my neck as he peered over my shoulder, taking in everything in the room. I shut the door and walked to a larger door which was closed. Trying the handle I found it was locked.

'Yeah, any time you feel like letting me in.' John was clearly irritated.

I motioned to Sherlock and we both turned sideways-on and together we shoulder-charged the door and it bursts open, sending me flying into the room as Sherlock calmly walked inside after me as I picked myself up from the floor my line of vision happened to fall onto the man in a suit and overcoat who was lying on his back on the bed dead He walks inside and finds a man in a suit and overcoat lying on his back on the bed, dead. There was a pistol on the floor, and the man had a small bullet hole in his right temple.

* * *

**Hey guys, I'm thinking about replacing Sarah with another OC character, if I did then she would probably be a relative of one of the characters in the show. Let me know what you think about it, and who's relative she is and what relation she is. I just like switching things up, and adding to the original :)**

**I have so many ideas for what I want to do with after I've written The Reichenbach Fall, which seems so far away, I really want to just write it, but I can't skip straight to it and miss out the other episodes. Oh god.**

**-Watson'sGirl-**


	3. Chapter 3

**I do not own Sherlock or its characters, they belong to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, the BBC and the actors. I only own my OC characters, Charles and Lucy, along with any others.**

**A relatively mid length chapter for you lot today, I'm absolutely swamped with rehearsals and dance rehearsals at the minute, so I literally have no energy after tap dancing and singing for up to 12 hours a day. Also, for the time being, I've decided to leave Sarah in saying as she's only in it for a little while.**

**Enjoy :)x**

* * *

**CHARLES**

After calling Scotland Yard and specifically asking for Lestrade, I opened the door to let a slightly annoyed John into the flat. In no more then fifteen minutes the police were here and a photographer was taking pictures of Van Coon's body lying on the bed, I decided it would be best for me to move out of his way, so I went to stand next to a forensic officer who was concentrating on dusting for fingerprints on a mirror that was hanging above the mantle piece. I stood watching Sherlock as he entered the room, taking his coat off at the same time he was pulling on a pair of latex gloves, John following.

'Do you think he'd lost a _lot_ of money? I mean, suicide is pretty common among city boys.' John asked.

'We don't know that it _was_ suicide.' Sherlock retaliated, surprised that John was assuming that Van Coon committed suicide.

'Come on. The door was locked from the inside; you had to climb down the balcony.' Sherlock ignored John, pushing past him to squat down by a suitcase that was lying opened on the floor next to the victim's bed. Wanting to get a closer look I moved from the mantle piece and joined him.

'Been away three days, judging by the laundry.' Sherlock said, as I leaned in closer looking at the deep indentation amongst the clothing inside the case. I straightened up and turned to John

'Look at the case. There was something tightly packed inside it.' I said trying not to patronize him for missing it.

'Thanks – I'll take your word for it.'

'Problem?' I asked, slightly taken back by his tone.

'Yeah, I'm not desperate to root around some bloke's dirty underwear.' I held my hands up in a mock surrender, John had a point, I wasn't up for it either. Sherlock, who was now standing at the foot of the bed, gave a obviously loud, irritated sigh.

'Those symbols at the bank – the graffiti. Why were they put there?' He asked.

'What, some sort of code?'

'Obviously.' He sighed as he moved in to get a closer look at Van Coon's shoes, he then moved up and carefully opened up the mans jacket to look at the inside pockets. 'Why were they painted? If you want to communicate, why not use e-mail?' He asked to himself rather than to the room.

'Well, maybe he wasn't answering.' I said as I continued to watch him carefully as he patted the mans pockets looking for any evidence.

'Oh good. You follow.' He said.

'Yes' I said at the same time as John replied 'No.' Both me and Sherlock threw him a look before I moved to again join Sherlock as he began to examine Van Coon's body further.

'What kind of a message would everyone try to avoid?' Sherlock asked only to receive a confused frown from John. 'What about this morning – those letters you were looking at?'

'Bills.' John replied, watching as Sherlock gently pried Van Coon's mouth open and pulled out a small black origami flower from inside, I startle a bit as whatever air that was trapped in his lungs and throat hissed through his lips.

'Yes. He was being threatened.' Sherlock concluded, examining the origami figure closely, with John peering over his shoulder at the paper flower as he placed into an evidence bag. I hadn't noticed that we had been joined by a man dressed in a suit and tie and a overcoat.

'Ah, Sergeant. We haven't met.' Sergeant? This man looked far too young to be quite so high up in the force. Sherlock offered his hand for the man to shake, but he simply put his hands on his hips.

'Yeah, I know who you are; and I'd prefer it if you didn't tamper with any of the evidence.' He said sneering at Sherlock, who had since lowered his hand and was now handing the man the evidence bag, giving him his best stroppy expression.

'I've phoned Lestrade. Is he on his way?' I asked looking down at the man.

'He's busy.' I rolled my eyes in response. '_I'm_ in charge. And it's not Sergeant; it's Detective Inspector. Dimmock.' I looked at him, slightly surprised, I still didn't believe that he was old enough to even be on the police, let alone have advanced to a D.I rank, I chuckled quietly to myself as I saw Sherlock and John sharing in my surprise. Without another word Dimmock turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, the three of us following him into the living room where we see Dimmock hand the bag to one of the forensics team._  
_

'We're obviously looking at a suicide.' Dimmock stated blatantly.

'That does seem the only explanation of all the facts.' John said.

Sherlock snapped off his gloves and turn back to John 'Wrong. It's one _possible_ explanation of _some_ of the facts.' He turned to Dimmock._ '_You've got a solution that you like, but you're choosing to ignore anything you see that doesn't comply with it.'

'Like?'

'The wound was on the _right_ side of his head.' Sherlock stated

'And?'

'Van Coon was left-handed. He explained as he demonstrated his point by pretending to try and point a gun to his right temple using his left hand. 'Requires quite a bit of contortion.'

'Left-handed?'

'Oh, I'm amazed you didn't notice. All you have to do is look around this flat.' he said sarcastically before turning to me. 'I mean, Charles, even you noticed it.'

'Thanks _dad_.' I said, over emphasizing on the dad. He didn't react as Dimmock looked from me to Sherlock and back again, obviously realizing why he probably found us both irritating; Sherlock just continued to stare at me, I knew all too well what he wanted me to do. 'Fuck's sake' I muttered to myself as I pointed to the table beside the sofa 'Coffee table on the left-hand side; coffee mug handle pointing to the left. Power sockets: habitually used the ones on the left...' I moved over to the double socket on the wall which had one plug in the left-hand socket. 'Pen and paper on the left-hand side of the phone because he picked it up with his right and took down messages with his left.' I sighed before turning back to the room 'Do you want me to go on?'

'No, I think you've covered it.' John said rather tiredly, not mainly directed towards me.

'Oh, you might as well; you're almost at the bottom of the list' Sherlock said waving his hand as to tell me to continue, as John nodded his head as if to say'Yeah, I thought you might say that.'

Not wanting to argue, I pointed over my shoulder to the kitchen 'There's a knife on the breadboard with butter on the right side of the blade because he used it with his left.' I turned to Dimmock to finish but Sherlock beat me to it.

'It's highly unlikely that a left-handed man would shoot himself in the _right_ side of his head.' I laughed out loud rather than to myself, earning me three confused faces to turn on me. 'What?'

'Says the man whose flatmate is left-handed yet shoots with his right hand...' I trailed off looking directly at John. Sherlock followed my gaze towards John before looking between the two of us several times, still confused.

'Conclusion.' Sherlock declared, completely ignoring mine and John's sniggering. 'Someone broke in here and murdered him. _Only_ explanation of _all_ the facts.'

'But the gun, why...' Dimmock began.

'He was _waiting_ for the killer. He'd been threatened.' He said as he walked away and started to pull on his scarf, coat and gloves.

'What?'

'Today at the bank. Sort of a warning.' John chipped in after calming down.

'He fired a shot when his attacker came in.' Sherlock determined.

'And the bullet?' Dimmock asked.

'Went through the open window.'

'Oh, come on! What are the chances of _that_?!'

'Wait until you get the ballistics report. The bullet in his brain wasn't fired from his gun. I guarantee it.' Sherlock said, looking down at Dimmock.

'But if his door was locked from the inside, how did the killer get in?'

'Good!' Sherlock said condescendingly as he dramatically slammed his hand into his glove. 'You're finally asking the right questions.' John followed Sherlock as he flounced out of the room towards the front door. I looked round at Dimmock, pointing apologetically towards the departing drama queen before I ran after them._  
_

* * *

After leaving Van Coon's apartment, we immediately went for a taxi to go to the restaurant where Sherlock somehow knew Sebastian would be having lunch with some clients and work colleagues. We entered the restaurant, and found Sebastian in mid conversation, telling a rather terrible joke which surprising the rest of the table found hilarious. '...and he's left trying to sort of cut his hair with a fork, which of course can never be done!' The three of us marched straight over to the tabled.

'It was a threat. That's what the graffiti meant.' Sherlock declared upon reaching the table.

Sebastian almost choked on his food, not expecting us. 'I'm kind of in a meeting. Can you make an appointment with my secretary?'

'I don't think this can wait. Sorry, Sebastian.' Sherlock said giving a false apology. 'One of your traders – someone who worked in your office – was killed.'

'What?'

'Van Coon. The police are at his flat.' John clarified.

'Killed?' Sebastian asked shocked.

'Sorry to interfere with everyone's digestion. Still wanna make an appointment? Would, maybe, nine o'clock at Scotland Yard suit?' Sherlock said, his voice oozing with sarcasm.

Sebastian put his glass of water down on the table and nervously ran his fingers on the inside of his shirt collar giving it a tug_, _before hastily apologizing to his dinner guest and leaving the table, signalling for us to follow him. We were walking in the direction of the restaurant's toilets when my phone suddenly rang, I pulled it from my coat and say Lucy's name on the screen. I slowed down, waiting for Sebastian, Sherlock and John to disappear into the toilets before answering. 'Hey Lucy. I thought you were at the theatre.'

'I was, but we had to cancel.' She sounded generally upset. 'The power went out in the building and it won't be on for another few days.' There was some shuffling on the other end of the line as I heard he say by to some of her cast mates. 'Anyway, I was thinking about going into town and thought you might want to join me?' She asked hopefully.

'Actually, I'm on a pretty big case right now with Sherlock and John, and we're probably going to be a while.' I felt bad for turning her down, lately we hardly had anytime to spend together in between Lucy's rehearsals and me being dragged along on every case he got.

'Oh okay.' Was her tiny reply.

'Look, I'll Sherlock that I need a break from the case.' I said desperately trying to resolve the problem.

'No. No, it's fine, really. I would probably only be going to pick up the remainder of the shopping that my dad failed to get his morning.'

'Okay, if you're sure.' I said as Sherlock, John and Sebastian exited the toilets, I looked up just as Sherlock and Sebastian walked straight past me, and saw John standing a respectful distance behind me. 'I've got to go, but I'll see you back at the flat yeah?'

'Yeah.' She sounded a little more cheery at the fact that we could actually spend time with each other.

'Okay, see you later.' I paused. 'Love you.' I hesitated before saying it. We'd said it a few times, but I was always worried that it was too soon or not the right moment.

'Love you too.' The call clicked off and I pushed my phone back into my pocket; walking with John as we exited the restaurant after Sherlock, he filled me in on their 'bathroom conversation' as we stood by the main road waiting for a cab.

* * *

Once we were back at 221B, John had gotten out of the cab in the town centre for a job interview at the doctor's surgery, Sherlock went straight on John's laptop to print off the pictures he had taken on his phone of the graffiti, I had a few on my phone so I did the same. After they had all been stuck around the mirror above the fireplaces_,_ I went and joined Lucy on the couch where she was listening to the orchestrations of her show, flopping down next to her, I took the headphone out her her ear closest to me, surprising her a little. The whole room was silent as Sherlock was sitting in deep concentration on one of the dining chairs, with his back pressed to the dining table, staring straight at the photos with his fingers steepled under his chin as usual, and Lucy and I were sitting comfortably listening to the music and occasionally chatting quietly about the show and about the case. Nearly forty-five minutes later I heard the front door open and close

'I said, "Could you pass me a pen?"' Sherlock said almost as soon as John set foot in through the living room door.

John looked around the living room as if he expected Sherlock to be talking to someone else, he looked over to where me and Lucy were still listening to the music. I didn't know who he was talking to so I gave a brief shrug of the shoulders. 'What? When?' John asked looking down to Sherlock.

'About an hour ago.'

'Didn't notice I wasn't actually here, then.' John sighed as I tossed him a pen from the coffee table, he caught it with ease and quickly threw it across the room to Sherlock without even looking. In a flash Sherlock had raised his left hand and caught the pen without taking his eyes away from the photographs on the wall. I gave the headphone back to Lucy as I stood to join John at the mirror to get a closer look at the photos, I hadn't actually properly looked at them since we got home. 'Yeah, I went to see about a job at that surgery.' John said as we looked at the photos more closely.

'How was it?' Sherlock asked, not looking round

'It's great. She's great.' He replied absently.

'Who?'

John spun round, looking down at Sherlock in the chair. 'The job.' He said a little too quickly.

'"She"?' Lucy said, suddenly taking an interest.

'...It.' He knew he'd been caught out so just accepted the facts. Sherlock looked at him suspiciously for a moment, being subtle about it, whereas Lucy was widely smirking at him.

'Here, have a look.' Sherlock said to both me and John, pointing over to the dining table.

'Hmm?' We walked over to the table in the kitchen, where Sherlock was pointing and looked at the already open web page on the computer screen. The article which was opened was the main news of the 'Online News' webpage, and was headlined in big bold letters as "**GHOSTLY KILLER LEAVES MYSTERY FOR POLICE**". Next to the headline was a photograph of a bald man, I flicked down to the actual content of the section, reading about how an intruder who can walk through walls murdered a man in his London apartment last night. Under the photograph, the victim's name was captioned - Brian Lukis, 41, a freelance journalist from Earl's Court was found shot in his fourth floor flat, but all his doors and windows were locked and there were no apparent signs of a break in. I read on and saw that a police spokesman said they are still uncertain how the assailant broke in...probably Dimmock I thought to myself. 'The intruder who can walk through walls.' I said as I read through the article.

'Happened last night. Journalist shot dead in his flat; doors locked, windows bolted from the inside – exactly the same as Van Coon.'

'God. You think...' John said as he straightened up to look at Sherlock.

'He's killed another one.'

* * *

**Phew, I'm starting to struggle a bit with the writing. I've noticed that this story doesn't seem to be being received as my other one. I am a new writer so this is understandable, but it's still a tad sad.**

**Anyhoo! Let's not dwell on the negative things. Thanks so so so much to all of you who have been reading and reviewing, it means a lot.**

**-Watson'sGirl-**


	4. Chapter 4

**I do not own Sherlock or its characters, they belong to Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, the BBC and the actors. I only own my OC characters, Charles and Lucy, along with any others.**

**A nice long chapter for you guys! Over 5000 words, by far my biggest one yet!**

**I hope no one minds that I changed the John getting an ASBO scene, I just don't feel that there is enough Sherlock/Lucy bonding, so their going on some adventures together!**

**Enjoy x**

* * *

**CHARLES**

As soon as we arrived at Scotland Yard, we were taken straight to D.I. Dimmock who greeted us with a stern expression, his arms folded tightly across his chest in exasperation. I held back for a moment upon noticing that we had somehow managed to lose Lucy. Looking around quickly I saw her by the water cooler engaged in a surprisingly pleasant conversation with Anderson and Donovan, with I thought was odd. Never the less, I joined John and Sherlock at Dimmock's desk where, without waiting for an invitation, Sherlock had all but threw his, correction my, laptop down on the already cluttered desk and began typing furiously. 'Brian Lukis, freelance journalist. Murdered in his flat...' He grabbed the laptop's screen, turning it around to show Dimmock the webpage we had just been reading. '...doors locked from the inside.'

'You've gotta admit, it's similar.' John said as Dimmock scowled at the computer. 'Both men killed by someone who can...' he looked around over his shoulder, hesitating momentarily in case anyone in an earshot could hear. '...walk through solid walls.' He finished, not fully believing that he actually had to say those words out loud.

'Inspector, do you seriously believe that Eddie Van Coon was just another City suicide?' I asked, Dimmock squirmed, not meeting my eyes. Sherlock sighed pointedly, looking up towards the ceiling, exasperated.

'You _have_ seen the ballistics report, I suppose?' He spoke slowly and a little louder, as if talking to a child.

'Mmm.'

'And the shot that killed him: was it fired from his own gun?'

'No.' Dimmock replied reluctantly.

'No.' Sherlock clarified, clapping his hands together and holding them to his chest. 'So this investigation might move a bit quicker if you were to take my word as gospel.' Dimmock looked from Sherlock to me and then back to Sherlock silently. I wanted to reach over and grab his coat as he leaned forward over the desk and spoke quietly but intensely into Dimmock's face. 'I've just handed you a murder inquiry.' Suddenly he stood up and pointed at the picture of Lukis still displayed on the computer screen. 'Five minutes in his flat.'

'Five minutes. No longer'

With that, Sherlock turned on his heel and practically marched out of the office floor, but not before calling over his shoulder so the whole floor could hear. 'Anderson leave my son's girlfriend alone. She's far too young for you.' Anderson, who was leaning against the wall, his eyes scanning Lucy, suddenly straightened up almost dropping his mug of coffee as the whole occupation of the office floor turned to look at the scene unfolding, most looked at Anderson in slight disgust. I watched as John quickly walked over and pulled Lucy away by her arm, before turning and saying something to Anderson that was to low and hushed for me to hear, it did however make him rigid and back away.

* * *

**CHARLES**

Ducking under the police tape cordoning off the bottom of the stairs leading up to Lukis' flat, I held the tape up for John and Lucy to quickly duck under as we rushed to follow Sherlock and Dimmock upstairs. By the time we got upstairs, Sherlock was already flicking between the living room and the landing, checking every nook and cranny of the small dingy flat, to me everything looked fine and nothing seemed to be out of place, but obviously must be wrong. While John and Dimmock kept an over-anxious Sherlock entertained, Lucy and I took the opportunity to have a look around for ourselves, starting with the living room. The living room had hardly any space to move among the hundreds of books that were once on the bookcases built into the wall by the television, but were now residing in a heap on the floor. The rectangular coffee table in the centre of the room was over run with notebooks and printed reports, all for news articles and segments from magazines. 'Charles? Come and have a look at this.' I looked over my shoulder to where Lucy was crouched down by the worn couch, in front of her was an open suitcase lying on the middle seat of the couch. Upon approaching the case, I saw that it was empty apart from the single black origami flower which was now resting on the palm of Lucy's hand. 'Van Coon.' I murmured as I took it from her to observe if further.

'What?'

'Oh uh, in Van Coon's flat, well his mouth rather, there was another one of these.' I said twirling the flower between my fingers as I rose from my crouching position, helping Lucy up as I did so. We joined Sherlock, John and Detective Inspector Dimmock back on the landing, which was in no better condition than the living room, there was books everywhere with several newspapers lying crumpled and opened on the floor. I walked over to where Sherlock was climbing on a stack of books and openly handed him the flower. 'It's identical to the one we found at Van Coon's.'

'So it's definitely the same killer.' Lucy said from the kitchen where she was helping John look through more papers and books. Sherlock jumped down from the pile of books, scattering them everywhere and walked over to the kitchen area, he pulled back the curtains and I got a better view of what he was looking at. The rooftops of the nearby buildings were lower than the window and could have acted as stairs to the window.

'Four floors up. _That's_ why they think they're safe.' Sherlock said as he turned back to the rest of us, smirking. 'Put a chain across the door and bolt it shut; think they're impregnable.' He rattled off whilst walking back into the middle of the landing again. 'They don't reckon for one second that there's another way in.' He spun round a few times observing the room before looking upwards to the skylight above the landing.

'I don't understand.' Dimmock sighed, running his hands over his face and through his hair.

'You're dealing with a killer who can climb.' He placed his hand on the sill of a nearby window and the banister and vaulted himself up onto the window sill to get a closer look at the skylight which was on an awkward angle on the ceiling.

'What are you doing?' Dimmock sighed, he was exhausted, as if he was looking after an excited three-year old.

'He clings to the walls like an insect.' He unhooked the latch, pushing the window upwards. 'That's how he got in.' Sherlock softly said to himself.

'What?!'

'Climbed up the side of the walls, ran along the roof, dropped in through this skylight.'

'You're not serious! Like Spiderman?(!)' Dimmock said mockingly.

'Yes, because Peter Parker thought that saving people was a little over rated so he started killing them.' I scoffed sarcastically only to receive a rather confused sideways glance from Sherlock as if to say 'Peter Parker?' I waved him off, realizing what Sherlock was getting at. 'So...he scaled six floors of a Docklands apartment building, and jumped onto the balcony to kill Van Coon?'

'Exactly!'

'Oh, ho-hold on!' Dimmock exclaimed in disbelief.

'And of course that's how he got into the bank. He ran along the window ledge and onto the terrace.' He jumped back down from the window sill, looking around. 'We have to find out what connects these two men.' My eyes fall to the pile of books that were lying scattered up the side of the stair case, the ones which Sherlock had previously knocked over. Jumping down a few stairs I picked up a few books and quickly flicked through them before landing on one particular book which had fallen open at its front page showing the contents page, and it's label for the West Kensington Library. Grabbing the book, I jogged back up the stairs and handed it to Sherlock without a word. Instantly slamming the book shut, he tucked it into the inside pocket of his great-coat and headed off down the stairs, leaving the rest of to simply follow.

* * *

**CHARLES**

We were once again on an escalator. As we reached the top we followed Sherlock and John as they found their way to the aisle where Lukis' book must have come from. 'Date stamped on the book is the same day that he died.' He passed the book over his shoulder to me, I grabbed it and checked the reference number on the bottom of the book's spine, finding that Sherlock was already at the correct place among the shelves and already had his hands full of books, examining them, John and Lucy were doing the same thing on another shelf of books a little further down from us._  
_

'Sherlock.' Lucy said, a hint of fear in her and I turned simultaneously to see both John and Lucy staring into the gap left by the books they had just removed. Stepping over to them, Sherlock reached for the shelf and pulled out some of the books with a swipe of his hand, helping him, Lucy quickly grabbed some books in her small hands, creating a bigger gap, revealing to symbols, identical to those sprayed across Sir William Shad's office, had been spray painted in luminous yellow on the back of the book shelf.

* * *

**LUCY**

Back at Baker Street, the collection of photographs around the mirror in the living room had steadily increased after adding the photographs taken from both Lukis' flat and from the library, all four of us were busy in the living room, Charles and John were going through the case notes and the pile of newspaper clipping taken from Lukis' flat, whilst Sherlock and I were gathered around the fireplace looking at and observing the photographs.

'Let me see if I've got this right.' I said, after going over the case notes and the photos, I thought I was up to their speed on the case. 'So, the killer goes to the bank, leaves a threatening cipher for Van Coon; Van Coon panics, returns to his apartment, locks himself in...' I stopped, looking round the mass of photos. '...Hours later, he dies.'

'The killer finds Lukis at the library; he writes the cipher on the shelf where he knows it'll be seen; Lukis goes home.' Sherlock continued my theory.

'Late that night, he dies too.' I finished. '_Why_ did they die, Sherlock?' I asked him softly, leaning closer. Sherlock looked down and me and ran his fingers over the line painted across Sir William's face.

'Only the cipher can tell us.' He whispered back, trying to keep the silent atmosphere through out the flat. We stood motionless for a few minutes as he thoughtfully tapped his index finger against the photo, suddenly his expression sharpens, he grabs my shoulder, spinning me gently and pushes me towards the front door, pulling on his coat at the same time.

'Where are you going?' John asked as I was pushed down the stairs by Sherlock, stumbling on the odd stair before reaching the bottom.

'I have an idea' was all he said as he opened the door and ushered me out, before slamming the door closed. It was mid day, so the streets were pretty busy, even though the traffic was rushing, Sherlock immediately managed to flag down a taxi and bundled us both inside. 'Trafalgar Square.'

* * *

**LUCY **

The taxi ride was short and silently, and soon enough we were walking through the centre of the square, heading towards the National Gallery. 'The world's run on codes and ciphers, Lucy. From the million-pound security system at the bank, to the PIN machine you took exception to, cryptography inhabits our every waking moment.'

'Okay...' He stared down at me. I have no idea what you just said.'

'The underline message is that it's all computer-generated: electronic codes, electronic ciphering methods. This is different. It's an ancient device. Modern code-breaking methods won't unravel it.'

I nodded, actually understanding him when he explained it rather than just told me 'So why are we here?'

'I need to ask some advice.' he said innocently.

'Really?!' Sherlock stopped in his tracks and threw me a black look, I smiled in disbelief.

'You heard me perfectly. I'm not saying it again.' He clarified.

'So now you want someone else's help.' He continued to look down at me, slightly bewildered. 'Why am I here then?'

'You're helping' He took a step towards me, towering above me.

'I offered you my help before, remember Sherlock? But you let your ego get in the way. You made it quite clear that you didn't need me' I hissed. I kind of regretted it once I said it, as I saw the brief flicker of guilt and remorse flit across his glassy stare. 'But I helped none the less, because I care about you.' This took him back slightly. 'I care about you. I care about Charles. I care about my dad.'

'I didn't want your help, that's true. Only because I didn't want anyone else getting seriously hurt or even dying in the hands of that cabbie' Sherlock said, still looking down at me. In two steps he was right in front of me, he crouched down to my height and grasped my shoulders in his strong hands.

'I can look after myself, I'm not a child!'

'I know, but look what happened to you.' He said shaking me lightly. I closed my eyes, remembering the pain and the emotions I felt at the moment I thought I was going to die in that cold class room.

'Okay.' I felt him retract his hands, and I re opened my eyes, that were threatening the fill up. 'So you need advice?' I said with a small smile.

'On painting, yes. I need to talk to an expert.' He lead me towards the entrance of the National Gallery, and straight around it to the rear of the building where I saw a young man using a stencil to spray paint an image of a police officer holding a rifle in his hands onto a grey metal door. As we got closer I saw that instead of a human nose, the police officer had a large pigs snout. The man reached into a large canvas bag at his feet and pulled out another spray can, using it to spray his tag, "RAZ", below the image. He continued to spray, unperturbed, as Sherlock and I approached.

'Part of a new exhibition.' The man called "Raz" said as we stopped beside him.

_'_Interesting.' Sherlock sighed, completely disinterested.

'I call it Urban Bloodlust Frenzy.' Raz chuckled, looking straight at me.

'It's good' It really was good, I didn't approve of graffiti but this was good.

'I've got two minutes before a Community Support Officer comes round that corner.' He continued spraying as he looked up at Sherlock. 'Can we do this while I'm workin'?' Sherlock took his phone from his coat pocket and held it out to Raz, just centimeters from his face. Raz handed one of his cans to me as he turned to take the phone from Sherlock. I staring down at the can, unsure of what to do with it. Raz took Sherlock's phone and began to scroll through the photographs of the yellow ciphers from Sir William's office and the library.

'Know the author?' Sherlock asked after a few seconds, clearly impatient.

'Recognize the paint. It's like Michigan; hardcore propellant. I'd say zinc.' Raz said, rattling through his knowledge of graffiti tags and paints.

'What about the symbols: d'you recognize them?' I asked him, rolling the can between my hands, only to get black paint on my fingers.

'Not even sure it's a proper language.' He said whilst squinting at the pictures.

'Two men have been murdered, Raz.' I said seriously, hoping it would help him focus properly.

'Deciphering this is the key to finding out who killed them.' Sherlock said pushing his hands into his pockets.

Raz looked up from the phone, and flicked his head from me to Sherlock 'What, and this is all you've got to go on?' I gave a small nod and a shrug. 'It's hardly much, now, is it?'

'Are you gonna help us or not?' Sherlock asked, he was getting irritated now.

'I'll ask around.' Raz said, holding his hands up in a mock surrender.

'Somebody must know something about it.'

'Oi!' The three of us looked round to see two community wardens hurrying towards us. Sherlock instantly grabbed his phone from Raz and took off running in the opposite direction, Raz used his natural instinct and dropped his spray can and kicked the bag away before scarpering. I stood frozen for all but two seconds before following suit and sprinted after Sherlock and Raz, losing the grip of my backpack, allowing it to slip from my shoulders and onto the ground. I caught with them soon enough, and so did the wardens. 'What the hell do you think you're doing? This gallery is a listed public building!' I heard the shouts of the community wardens as they chased us around the corner. Rounding the corner as fast as I could, I skidded and collided with Raz, falling to the ground, landing on my hands and knees. My hands stung as I tried to push myself up, but someone grabbed the top of my arms, I twisted my arms and turned to face behind me to see the two community wardens staring down at me. 'Hey!' I shouted as they pulled me up and turned me round putting hands behind my back, ready to slap the cuffs on. 'It wasn't me. I didn't do it!' I heard both of the wardens laugh.

'Judging by the paint on your hands, I'd say that was a lie.' He said, and I heard the sound of handcuffs being unlocked. Great, I thought, I'm getting arrested and Sherlock's done a runner. Suddenly I heard running footsteps behind 'Oi pig!' shouted Raz as he and Sherlock threw the bag of spray cans at the wardens before bolting back around the corner. My arms dropped as they released me and sprinted after Raz and Sherlock, I wasted no time and ran off in the other direction back down towards the main road, I ran until I reached the back alley split into three different directions. I spun round, looking at my options, Sherlock and Raz were nowhere to be seen, and I was completely and utterly lost, the sound of the traffic on the main road was roaring in the distance. I spun round one last time before deciding to go down the left path, hoping to intersect Sherlock and Raz along the way. As soon as I turned, I saw a white light as I hit something hard the wind automatically knocked out me, stumbling to my knees I held my stomach as a pair of hands grabbed my head, one on my temple and the other on the back of my neck. 'Are you alright?' The distorted voice asked, panicked. I had to blink quite hard a few times to push past the blurriness and the coloured dots that were obscuring my vision. 'Lucy!' The hands shook me and I realized now that the voice was Sherlock's. 'Are you alright?' Taking a few shaky breaths, I slowly stood, helped by Sherlock before giving him a little nod.

'Where's Raz? The wardens?'

'We gave them the slip. Apparently the local wardens don't check skips.'

* * *

**LUCY**

As soon as we were back in the living room of 221B, I stood over by the fireplace where the mirror was now almost completely covered with sheets of paper with various ciphers and pictograms, which John and Charles must have spent all afternoon drawing up. I looking round at Sherlock, who was consulting a book, his head lowered, I hadn't realized that neither Charles nor my dad were home. The room was silent for a few moments as I studied the wall, until a slamming door announced John and Charles' return to the flat.

'Where have you been?' I asked my dad as he entered the room, I moved from the fireplace to give Charles space to study the wall. I went and sat next to Sherlock on the floor where there was numerous sheets of paper by his feet with symbols drawn on them. He stooped briefly before taking two more paces into the living room his shoulders rigid and his fists clenched. He stopped once more, blinking as he fought to hold back his obvious anger, he then turned to me.

'First of all.' John started, pointing at Sherlock. 'The two of you go swanning off, without telling anyone where you were going or what you were doing.' He jabbed his finger in my direction this time. 'Then, to top it all, I get a call from a very angry Sergeant Donovan telling me that you were caught defacing public property!' I said nothing, I just looked down at the floor, awkwardly shuffling pieces of paper, John threw my dark green backpack at me, it landed in front of me making me jump. 'You left this behind.' I picked up the pack and stared at it trying to figure out how anyone could have known that it belonged to me, that was until I saw a small white stripe at the top of the bag, just under the zip. ' ' it read.

'Well they wouldn't have known it was mine if you hadn't labelled it like I'm five years old!' I screamed, jumping up from the floor.

'If I hadn't just paid for the damage to be repaired then you would be in court on Tuesday getting an ASBO! So don't you _dare_ take that tone with me Lucy Watson!' He was livid, I could tell by the clearly visible vein on his forehead. I screamed out of frustration and threw the bag back across the room, I ran my hands threw my hair and slumped onto the floor resting against the armchair. The room went into a deathly silence for what seemed like an eternity.

_'_Good. Fine.' Sherlock perked up from his seat. I hadn't thought that he had been paying attention up until now. He suddenly slammed his book shut and jumped up from his chair 'This symbol: I still can't place it.' He turned and put his book down on the coffee table before walking over to John, who had just started to take his jacket off, Sherlock grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled it back onto his shoulders. 'No, I need you two to go to the police station...'

'Oy, oy, oy!' I heard Charles' protests and Sherlock grabbed him too and pushed him out of the door with John.

'...ask about the journalist.' I sighed and got up from my arm-chair, pulling my coat and backpack back on over my t-shirt and followed Sherlock as he grabbed his own coat from the back of the door and jogged down the stairs the rest in pursuit 'His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements.' By the time we got outside, John had already flagged a taxi, which was now slowly pulling over.

'Why can't you go?' Charles asked, buttoning up his long coat.

'Going to go and see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somewhere they'll coincide.' I was about to follow my dad and Charles into the taxi when the door suddenly slammed in my face and Sherlock put his arm around my shoulder and spun me away from the taxi. 'You're coming with me.' I looked up at him blankly. 'I need your help.' With that we were walking off down the street into the centre of town, I turned to see John and Charles' taxi had already pulled away and was already travelling in the other direction. As their taxi rounded the corner, my eyes fell on an oriental-looking woman with dark hair, wearing dark sunglasses standing on the opposite side of the road, taking a photograph of the taxi as it drove away. As soon as the taxi was out of sight, the woman subtly turned her camera so it's lens was pointing directly at Sherlock and I, squinting my eyes I saw a tiny flash and turned to Sherlock quickly hoping that he too had seen the woman, but he was looking straight ahead talking to himself. Slowly turning back to face the woman, I saw that the street was practically empty now and that the woman and all traces of her were gone.

* * *

**LUCY**

Sherlock and I walked through the city centre for around half an hour before we finally came to our destination. I instantly recognized the building as the Shad Sanderson Bank, and didn't really know why we were here or why we didn't just get a taxi here like before. Going up the same escalator as before, we walked straight through the buildings reception without consulting with the receptionist first. I thought that we must have come back to see the sleaze Sebastian, but instead we went straight to see Edward Van Coon's personal assistant, Amanda in her office. Sherlock had asked her to pull up all of Van Coon's appointments a month leading up to his death, I stood staring at the online calendar, looking at the vast number of appointments and flights he had booked in.

'He flew back from Dalian on Friday.' She said pointing to the date. 'It looks like he had back-to-back meetings with the sales team.'

'Can you print me up a copy?' Sherlock asked, sweet talking the woman.

'Sure.' She replied without giving him so much as a glance.

'What about the day he died? Where would he have been?' I asked, not being able to spot anything for that date.

'Sorry. Bit of a gap.' All three of us looked at the screen and the space for Monday the 22nd. Sherlock looked away, frustrated. Amanda straightened up suddenly realizing something. 'I have all his receipts.'

* * *

**CHARLES**

While Sherlock and Lucy were off again god knows where doing god knows what, John and I were stuck with the company of Detective Inspector Dimmock, who was standing at a desk with John, the pair of them were rummaging through a box of Brian Lukis' possessions. 'Your friend...' Dimmock said looking at John rather than me.

'Listen: whatever you say, I'm behind you one hundred percent.' John said still going through the box.

'...he's an arrogant sod.'

'Well, _that_ was mild! People say a lot worse than that.' John laughed as Dimmock handed him Lukis' diary.

'This is what you wanted, isn't it? The journalist's diary?' John took the diary and began to flick through it, not really knowing what he was supposed to be looking for. He opened it at a page that had been bookmarked with a boarding pass for a flight to Dalian's International Airport.

* * *

**LUCY**

Amanda spread out all of Van Coon's receipts on to her desk and we all began to shuffle through them. 'What kind of a boss was he, Amanda? Appreciative?' Sherlock asked still stifling through the small sheets of paper.

I watched as Amanda shifted awkwardly, not knowing how to answer the question 'Um, no. That's not a word I'd use. The only things Eddie appreciated had a big price tag.' She said as Sherlock knelt onto the floor to get a closer look at the receipts. I watched him carefully, and saw what had caught his eye, there was a pump-action bottle of luxury hand lotion at the back of Amanda's desk, I knew the brand, I was expensive.

'Like that hand cream. _He_ bought that for you, didn't he?' Amanda began to nervously fiddle with her hair, specifically the pin that was keeping her bun in place. She looked at him in surprise as I continued to shuffle through the paperwork, until I spotted a receipt that was from a licensed taxi, it was dated for the 22nd of March 2010 and timed at 10:35, I looked at the price of the receipt - £18.50. Giving it one last look over before handing it over to Sherlock.

'Sherlock, look at this one. He got a taxi from home on the day he died. Eighteen pounds fifty.'

'That would get him to the office.' Amanda said leaning over my shoulder.

'Not during rush hour surely, look at the time.' I said, pointing out the time on the receipt.

'Mid-morning. Eighteen would get him as far as...' Sherlock murmured.

'The West End. I remember him saying.' Amanda said as I saw Sherlock pick up another receipt, this time for the London Underground with the same date on it, I saw that it was issued at Piccadilly. Without looking, he held his hand up, giving the receipt to Amanda._  
_

'Underground. Printed at one in Piccadilly.'

'So he got a Tube back to the office.' I clarified.

'Why would he get a taxi into town and then the Tube back?' Amanda asked.

'Because he was delivering something heavy. Didn't want to lug a package up the escalator.' Sherlock said, still going through the receipts.

'Delivering?' Amanda and I asked at almost the same time.

'To somewhere near Piccadilly Station. Dropped the package, delivered it and then...' He stopped, finding another receipt, he moves to stand, still observing the receipt. He showed it to me and I saw that it was from the Piazza Espresso Bar Italiano. '...he stopped on his way. He got peckish.' Sherlock said smiling and he gently tugged my arm, ushering me out of the office, leaving Amanda to clean up the receipts.

* * *

**Guess who got tickets to the advanced screening of Season 3 Episode 1 in London next month with the entire cast and crew? This girl! Eeee I'm so excited!**

**I'm in the process of writing a Third Star story, it won't be up for a while I want to actually have it completed and upload the chapters on day at a time. However, I'm a little skeptical about this as I'm not sure if anyone would read it, as not many even read this one. I'll see.**

**I don't really have anything else to add for the moment. I'm just super busy with college and rehearsals and writing and life. Urgh life.**

**Thanks to those who read and reviewed (the small handful of you)**

**-Watson'sGirl-**


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